Twitch's $970 Million Exit Is A Big Win For Investors, Who Last Valued The Company At $100 Million

Ethan Kurzweil is a Twitch board member and investor.
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Game streaming site Twitch just sold to Amazon for $970 million in cash, and it's a big win for everyone involved, including Twitch's investors.

The company last raised money one year ago at a $100 million valuation, a source tells Business Insider.

Twitch raised $35 million in total from investors such as Bessemer Venture Partners, Thrive Capital, and Draper Associates. That's not counting the few million it raised in its first form, Justin.TV.

Bessemer's Ethan Kurzweil served on the startup's board; Bessemer is the largest investor in Twitch.

Twitch, which allows users to post and watch videos of videogame run-throughs, was a hugely popular segment of Justin.tv's traffic. Twitch amassed 8 million views in its first month, and it became so popular that it eventually took over Justin.tv's business in its entirety, as the company officially changed its name earlier this year. The site now has 55 million viewers.

Another Justin.tv spin-off, SocialCam, was previously acquired for $60 million, so spin-offs and pivots seem to be the founders' strengths.

It's unclear how Justin.tv's original investors, including Y Combinator and Asop Louie Partners, made out in the Twitch acquisition, but you can guess it was pretty good. Paul Graham's accelerator program Y Combinator wrote the first $50,000 check for Justin.tv.